Dragon Ball: Rise Of The Fallen
by omolina100
Summary: The saiyan race has been betrayed. With their home planet destroyed and their race hunted down nearly to extinction, the last saiyans struggle to become something more than just a footnote in the history of the galaxy. In their last few moments, the actions of one lone saiyan will lead to larger consequences than he can imagine, and to the redemption of the galaxy's strongest race.
1. Chapter 1

It was in the darkness of the endless void where he was making his stand. Every ounce of energy that he could muster went to the palm of his hand. His feet went numb, he felt disoriented, his chest began to burn with the effort of keeping him alive, but still he kept channeling his energy into his hand. The bright blue energy ball began growing and growing until it was the same size as his head, emitting a bright flash of light that burned and shone defiantly against the encroaching darkness that threatened to swallow him. It wasn't much to look at, really, but it was packed with more energy than he had mustered during the course of his entire life as a warrior.

A few dozen soldiers were floating behind him, their hand cannons trained on his back and ready to fire, but he knew that they would not attack him, not after he had killed several dozens of them in order to get where he was now. They were a ragtag band of individuals of varying races and sizes and skills that could barely be called an army, for it was fear, not discipline that held them together. It was only the authority of the master they served that gave them any real power, and against him, that was nothing.

Their master was sitting on his throne in front of him, at least 50 meters away from him, lifting a single finger and lazily powering up a tiny red and black energy ball that glowed sickly. It was minuscule, barely visible from where he was, but he knew the power behind the smaller creature. He knew what he was capable of.

He did not let his thoughts interrupt him, however. Bardock was first and foremost a warrior and he knew how to keep his mind on the fight. He continued sending pulses of energy to his hand, and by that point the energy ball was larger than his head, and seemed to shine even more.

He looked at Freeza again, and found the tyrant staring at him with a curious look on his regal face. He hated that look. He hated that man. Everything he had done in his entire career had been for him. He had risked his life for years, fighting for him without hesitating, never wavering in what he had been ordered to do. It was true that he had cared little for Freeza, but if King Vegeta had died, or had ceased to rule, he and his team would have had little problem following Freeza himself, if only because they had been blind before.

Instead Freeza had decided to have them all killed.

He almost crushed his own teeth at the thought. Seeing Tora, barely alive, shaking and spasming like a child, spewing his last words at him, it had been more than he had been able to take. Shugesh and Borgos had been dead for a while by the time he got there; they were probably the first that Dodoria had killed. But Fasha, poor, sweet, kind, loyal Fasha. It would have been a mercy to kill her. Without letting the flow of energy waver, he remember their last encounter, with tears filling his eyes and mixing with the sweat and blood on his face.

00

"_Don't let him win" she had so naively begged him. How could she ask him such a thing? How could she expect him to defeat Freeza? And yet, he knew he had to. His gaze lingered on her broken legs, shattered in more places than he could count, the blood that was slowly pouring from her mouth, the unnatural angle in which her right arm had been twisted and then smashed in. The wounds she had suffered were brutal, there had been no shred of compassion or mercy, not even honour on the attacks that she had suffered. It had been torture, as simple as that._

_He could no longer remain blind to the oppression of their people. He could not forgive this betrayal. Freeza had to die by saiyan hands for what he had done._

"_I will kill him" he promised as he carried her to his pod, careful not to damage her ravaged body. He gently placed her inside and began setting up the coordinates for planet Vegeta in the pod's computer when he felt her soft hand on his cheek, making him turn and look at her. She had a slender face, usually plastered with a small grin. Now it was smashed beyond recognition, her high cheekbones had been shattered, her lips split apart, her jaw hanging open at an unnatural angle. Several cuts and bruises adorned her forehead. Her left eye had swollen shut, and her right was bloodshot when her veins had ruptures and were now drowning her sclera in blood._

"_He's scared of you" she spoke softly and clumsily as she caressed his face softly. "He's terrified of you, and I think he has good reason to be."_

"_When I'm done with him I'm coming to get you back, so you can see what I've done to him. I swear we will be free, Fasha" he had replied in a moment of blind rage._

"_Where are you sending me?"_

"_To planet Vegeta for now. You'll get treated for your injuries and hopefully be back on your feet before you know it."_

"_What will you do in the meantime?"_

"_I'm going to find the ones that did this to you guys, and I'm going to make them pay. Then I'm going back to planet Vegeta to warn everybody of the danger. Don't worry about me, just get out of here, and get healed up. I promise you Freeza's going to pay."_

"_Right... guess I'll see you back in planet Vegeta... get him, Bardock" she murmured softly before allowing herself to pass out. He stepped back and after a few seconds, the hatch closed, and the pod shot off into the sky._

00

He had found the ones responsible all right, he had found and murdered them in such a brutal manner he had surprised even himself. Dodoria had found him after that, and left him for dead. It had been a damn miracle that he had managed to make it back to planet Vegeta. It was even more than a miracle that he had managed to send Fasha away to the only place he could think off that Freeza would never even bother to look.

But what really got to him what the fact that nobody had believed him. Fasha had been unconscious, so she couldn't tell them what had happened, and everybody had thought that he had simply failed in planet Meat, and that he was delirious, or going insane. Idiots, as if he had never taken a beating before. It burned inside of him, even more than his hatred of Freeza, it was the stupidity of his people, the willing blindness they had forced upon themselves. Had they listened to him, had they even considered the possibility, maybe something could have been done, but they had pushed him aside. They had shoved him away and accused him of being paranoid. They didn't understand. Most saiyans didn't even know what camaraderie was. More than once he had seen a superior officer, a general, even the king himself, killing a man or woman that had fought by their side for years, simply because they failed an assignment, simply because things did not go according to plan.

But he was a different breed. He was one of the few that actually cared for his friends, he was one of the few that cared for his people. And he was the only one standing up to Freeza.

He threw one last look around him, and looked at the same pathetic soldiers shaking in their boots. They did not know what freedom was, they did not know what pride was, they had no idea what it meant to think for yourself, to do what you know has to be done.

With his eyes focused on Freeza, Bardock decided that it was today when it ended. The oppression over planet Vegeta. The oppression over the Saiyan race. The destruction of cities that held no challenge for them simply because a tyrant told them to destroy. The slavery of their children. Freeza's life. It was today when it all ended.

With one last charge of energy, he lost all feeling on his legs and left arm, but it didn't matter, what mattered was killing him. With one last charge of energy he felt how his senses grew sharper. With one last charge of energy his eyes focused on Freeza's own and ignored everything else. With one last charge of energy he would set his people free.

"This!" he yelled as he pulled his arm back. Every muscle tensed past their ripping point.

"Ends!" His arm moved forward, using the last of his strength to propel the energy ball as fast as he could towards his most hated enemy.

"Now!" The ball flew away from his hand, flying faster than any attack Bardock had ever thrown. The ball cut through the artificial atmosphere that Freeza's ship created around it. The ball approached Freeza at blinding speeds, almost too fast for even Bardock to see…

The ball disappeared.

His eyes went as wide as they could when he saw the red and black supernova expand in less than a second, larger and larger until Freeza looked like a tiny speck under it. He heard a maniacal laugh from the creature, and he saw how the huge energy ball came closer and closer towards him.

Had he had any fight left in him he would have responded with an energy barrage, an energy wave, a desperate charge, anything. But down to the last bit of strength he had left had gone in his final attack, and he could no longer move. The ball encased him, and he felt how his armour gave way and began disintegrating around him. He felt how his skin began to peel back and his muscles burned away into nothing. He felt the screams from the cowards behind him as they suffered the same fate as him.

With the last second he had left in his life, Bardock saw how his son would one day do what he could not. And with a smile on his face, Bardock died.


	2. Chapter 2

The bridge was deathly silent. Aside from the background noises of computers going about their own business, there were no other sounds. Every single person in the bridge looked at Freeza's floating chair, not knowing what to expect but wary, they were always wary around their lord.

He was a small creature, barely taller than a child, but his minuscule body held more power than the entire ship combined. His two large horns protruded from either side of this domed white head, and numerous purple orbs adorned his body. Like all others in the ship, he was wearing the same plain combat armor everybody was expected to wear, but unlike the others, who were thankful for the protection it offered, to him it was nothing more than a piece of cloth. He had a face fit for a king, with sharp features and precise, cold eyes that seemed to look at the entire galaxy with a mocking glare.

"So you see, young Vegeta" he spoke with a soft and composed voice that oozed contempt and superiority. "It was a rather inadvertent catastrophe that befell your planet. I'm afraid you are the only survivors that we have heard of so far. We are recalling the rest of our forces as we speak, and hopefully we'll have news of the rest of your brethren soon."

Every single person in the bridge, with the exception of Freeza himself felt sorry for the young child kneeling behind him. It was terrible enough that his race had been all but obliterated, now he was forced to contend with someone who openly mocked him. Everyone was certain that he barely understood half the words that Freeza had spoken. The young child shifted uncomfortably, trying to find a suitable way to respond. He finally managed to find words big enough to say, and he mouthed them as confidently as he could. His voice barely under control.

"Thank you for telling me, Lord Freeza" he said, and the smile of delight on Freeza's face was evident to everyone but to the boy. "I assure you we will continue serving you as best we can."

"Oh my young boy, you are just the very model of what I want in my army. I'm so glad that you survived the terrible accident, truly your father was most wise to send you with me."

"Thank you, my Lord."

"Oh, no need to thank me, child. Now go and rest, I'm certain you already have a lot on your plate as it is. I'll give you some time to get back on your feet, so to speak."

The young prince reviewed the words that had just been said to him, and barely managed to understand them. He could leave, and that was all that mattered. He muttered his thanks again and quickly left the room. The second the metal door had closed behind him, his tiny hands clenched into fists, his even face turned into a snarl, and it took every ounce of willpower he had in his tiny body to stop himself from running back and kill the fools that were now laughing at his expense, he knew they were. He wasn't old enough to understand a lot of the things that happened in Freeza's ship, but he knew when he was being mocked, and he did not like it.

He looked at the big man standing near the door, who stood up straight the moment he had come out. For a second the glimpse of something had flashed behind his eyes, but Vegeta's childish brain did not understand it, and would not for several decades. It had been sorrow.

"Prince Vegeta... How did it go?"

He didn't answer. He merely scoffed and started walking towards his room, like he would have if he still had a planet, if the rest of his people were still alive. This man was a servant, and he was a prince. But as much as told himself that, he found himself very relieved to hear his footsteps falling behind his own. He wasn't alone. He still had a subject to command, he was still the prince of all saiyans, and he would act like it.

00

Fasha braced for impact as soon as she woke up as best as her bruised body would allow her. Being in stasis wasn't unpleasant, but it did leave her disoriented, especially after she had been roughly pulled from her healing tank before it was done. The pod she was in was an old model too, it didn't have any medical systems. This mean that her body had remained bruised and battered for an entire year with little natural healing. She winced at the thought, the next few months were going to be very uncomfortable.

The computer beeped once, indicating it had entered the atmosphere of wherever she was. The computer beeped again, indicating it would be landing soon, Fasha felt the crash as her circular ship smashed against the ground. Thankfully, the ground was very soft, and she didn't experience much other than a nauseating feeling in her stomach. After a few minutes in which the pod tested the air around her and informed her it was safe to breath, she closed her hand around the spare scouter that she had found laying around in the pod, maybe somebody had thrown it inside along with her.

The hatch opened, and she immediately saw a bright blue sky stretching as far as she could see, with only a few white clouds covering the view. her breath caught in her throat as she admired the beauty of the planet she was in. A small sun flashed down on her, a soft gust of air caressed her body with a gentle touch, she heard the sound of a small river nearby. For a moment she wondered if she was in heaven.

She was in a large green plain that stretched as far as the sky itself, and only the occasional tree or animal interrupted her view. This was one of those planets that would be worth a fortune to Freeza, and fear gripped her for a second before relaxing. Bardock wouldn't send her to a planet Freeza had planned to invade. She trusted him that much.

She winced in pain. Not physical pain, although there was plenty of that, but a pain deep inside of her. She had caught a glimpse, nothing more, but it had been enough. She had watched the flash of red and yellow and orange, and she had immediately recognized what it was. Her home planet had been destroyed, of that she had no doubt. What had happened to Bardock, she wondered as she steadied herself against the pod. Had he somehow survived? Was he maybe following her? Or had he died along with their race?

She placed a hand on her breasts, hoping that the pressure would ease the pain she felt, but it didn't work. She kept feeling the ugly, cold sensation of solitude inside of her. She didn't think that she was the last saiyan alive, after all, some were performing assignments, and prince Vegeta had been taken under Freeza's orders, there was some hope. She kept telling herself.

She felt the pain of knitting bones all through her body, and despite the fact that she wanted to vomit, she knew she had to eat, otherwise her body would be unable to heal. Getting better was her number one priority, she couldn't do anything else until she was healed.

Thinking that she was better, she tried to stand up by herself and she let go of the pod, only to crumble to the ground like a stack of cards. A feeling of desperation seized her like it had never before, and she felt how tears began to fall from her eyes. A tiny sound emerged from her throat, far too soft to be heard, but it was followed by another one, louder this time. As soon as it had died another replaced it. Soon she was sobbing and wailing on the ground, unable to do anything else. She allowed the frustration and pain she had been feeling ever since she had been ambushed and beaten around like a ragged doll to flow out of her, and after a few minutes she found herself making a different noise altogether. Laughter mixed with sobbing as she realized how pathetic she must have looked. Fallen on the ground, unable to stand up by herself, crying like a child, smelling like she hadn't taken a bath in years, and weak. That was the worst part.

She could feel the weakness inside of her, she imagine that she must have looked weak as well. Had Bardock seen her as she was, she would have died of shame instead of internal bleeding.

Despite the fact that she had always been one to openly express her emotions, she had learned that was not something Bardock knew how to deal with, and she had learned how to suppress her feelings when she was around him, but there was no need for that anymore. The thought made her feel somewhat better.

She managed to climb back to her feet, and still clutching the pod she began scouting the immediate area. What she saw surprised her. Not because there were many large or extraordinary power levels, but the complete opposite.

5. 2. 4. 6. 8. 1. 15. 7. 2. 9. Diminutive power levels filled her scouter's screen. With a flick she began switching her filter to read only higher power levels and four numbers popped up. 59. 52. 61. 109. That was probably what passed for elite in this planet. The thought made her chuckle a bit. Even in her current state she would have been able to kill them all.

Shrugging it off, Fasha decided that there was no threat to her in this planet. She activated the self scanner and a number much higher than the rest filled her screen. She stared at it for several moments before deciding to activate it again. The machine had to be malfunctioning. It read the same number. 1950.

Even in her state, Fasha managed to smile and almost laugh with happiness. Despite everything that had happened, despite having lost almost everything in her life, she managed a large smile that covered her face, and she held her sides to avoid her broken ribs from impaling her tender organs. 1950. Her power had soared after the beating she had taken. Her grin became even larger when she realized she was still very much injured, and as she her power level would be higher once she was back to full health. The thought managed to get a small laugh out of her, and she felt much better.

Without a clear plan in her head, Fasha sat back inside the pod and accessed the travel computer, thinking that maybe she could recognize the coordinates of the planet she was sent to, although she doubted it, numbers had never been her strong suit. The travel log read that she had been in stasis for a year and two months. The coordinates, which she didn't recognize, had been punched less than a minute before the pod had taken off, which meant one of two things. Either the pod had been pre-programmed to come here before Bardock shoved her in, unauthorized no doubt, or Bardock himself had punched in the coordinates. Both were likely, but her gut told her that it had been the latter.

Straightening back outside, she decided that the first order of business was getting food. If there was one thing that Fasha hated about traveling was the fact that by the time she awoke in the planet, she was always starving. Stomach rumbling, she levitated a few dozen meters and took aim at the biggest and fattest animal, quickly dispatching it with a single blast. She had not taken into account her new power, though, and her blast burned right through the animal, scorching it's corpse almost instantly. Annoyed that she had wasted the juiciest of the critters but proud of her new power, Fasha aimed at the second best and fired, this time the blast hit the creature in the face, and only the head was burnt. The rest of the animal was ripe to eat, and she did just that.

00

Gohan carefully stepped through the foliage, making sure to step on the few burning leaves that might threaten the forest if left unchecked, and arrived at a large crater that had cleared all life in a twelve meter radius. In the middle of that crate was a large metal sphere. It was unlike anything he had ever seen, and he was forced to grab his cap in surprise when the door opened loudly.

From the inside of the spaceship came some steam, and when it cleared, Gohan was able to peer inside, but he already knew what he would find. The helpless cries told him everything. The baby had a lot of hair, black as night, and was screaming and crying loudly, shaking his tiny arms and legs furiously inside his metal prison. Mercy won over caution and gingerly, Gohan made his way down to the boy, never taking his eyes off the strange alien spaceship. Deciding it wasn't a threat to him at the moment, Gohan crouched down and grabbed the little boy, careful not to rip any cables or strange contraptions in the machine. With some effort he finally got the boy free, and his cap almost fell off his head in surprise again when he saw the large tail the boy had. It looked just like a monkey's tail, bushy and long. The tail twitched every time the boy cried, and when he tried touching it, the boy yelled even louder and his tail cringed, wrapping around itself before falling down again, whipping wildly with the boy's movements.

Too astonished to even think at the moment, Gohan hugged the boy reassuringly and began walking back towards his home.

00

The second she finished eating, her brain managed to process the little thing that had been bothering ever since she discovered the coordinates had been punched less than a minute before she took off. Her mind flashed back to the discussion they had in Kanassa, before Bardock was attacked.

00

_"When was your younger son born?" Tora had asked him._

_"I don't know" Bardock had answered, not even bothering to open his eyes at the thought of his newborn son. "But that was a long time ago."_

_"It was not, you lazy bum!" she had butted in. "Yesterday. Come on, you need to go see the little tike. We have enough time to stop in before our next assignment._

00

"You need to see..." she murmured to herself as she swallowed the last piece of meat. He had tensed so much then. She had seen him, he had wanted to say so many things, but he held back. That's why Bardock had sent her here. She stood up and ran towards the pod as best as her body allowed her and accessed the main computer. Using the password that had taken almost two months to learn, Fasha accessed the computer's higher functions and began checking the entire planet for more pods. It took over fifteen minutes, but finally she got a reading. Another space pod had crashed, not much earlier than hers. She quickly downloaded the coordinates and passed them to her scouter. With a tiny beep, the green screen in front of her left eye began pinpointing the pod's location and she took off faster than she thought possible in her current state. The wind blew past her as she shot past the eternal grasslands and rose over the mountains hundreds of miles away. With a final burst of energy she shot even faster than she had flown before, leaving a bright, pink energy trail behind her. "I'm not alone!" she yelled with delight again and again.

00

There was a large crater, exactly the same size as the one her own pod had left behind. Numerous broken branches were everywhere along with dislodged rocks and dirt.

Her fists clenched tightly, straining her white gloves. Fasha felt a weight in her stomach reappear as she looked at the open hatch. It had been less than a day, how had anyone gotten here before she had? There were no major civilization centers nearby, they were in the middle of the wilderness.

She turned around and began scouting the area, grinding her teeth in frustration and letting out an angry groan as the scouter proved useless. With no other course of action available to her, she rose up into the air and got a better look at the pod. It had been unharmed, and it had opened, just like protocol dictated. Everything had gone fine, but Kakarot was not in the pod. Which meant somebody had taken him.

After a few painstaking minutes, she managed to recognize tracks on the ground. They were very faint, barely visible, but once she had seen them there was no losing them. They led away from the pod and deeper into the jungle, she realized. She rose over the treetops and looked at the jungle before her. It wasn't that thick, she should be able to fly over and scan the area until she found something. They couldn't have gotten very far away, and she only needed to be 50 meters away for the more detailed scouter routines to kick in and pick up even smaller power levels with ease.

00

She had searched the jungle for the better part of the day, flying around in wider and wider circles, quickly picking up more footsteps once she got closer to the ground. With a bit more patience, she was able to pick up the smell, and managed to follow the trail somewhat better. She flew over thick trees and small bushes, ignoring the chatter of animal life all around her. She was so focused on staring at the ground and following her nose that it took her a moment to understand what she was seeing. It was her own reflection, staring back in confusion. She flew upwards and took a look at her surroundings, she had arrived at a lake. There was a small waterfall on the northern side, making the otherwise calm water ripple. Around her, a few animals were drinking from the lake, either not noticing or not carrying for her presence.

The tracks were still fresh, and the scent was still lingering on the area, but she could seem to pinpoint an exact area. With a heavy sigh, she floated back down and landed on the ground next to the lake, taking a few sips of water to refresh her parched throat. Had her scouter not beeped she would have never realized there was a man behind her.

Her instinct kicked in and she jumped back into the cool water. She aimed her hand in the direction her scouter told her, but found only air. Perplexion covered her face, and she turned around a few times, always keeping her aim steady, waiting for the moment to fire. She was about to give up when she finally spotted him. He was small, and looked very old, but his pose, the way he was standing on the tree branch high above her, relaxed yet ready to jump at a moment's notice told her what her scouter confirmed, he wasn't a mere human.

"So you're the one that has been following me" he spoke in the softest voice she had ever heard. "Had I known I was being followed by such a pretty girl I would have revealed myself sooner" he chuckled.

She felt her aim falter for a moment, not in flattery, she was above such petty feelings, but in confusion. Who was this man?

"Ah!" her voice came unbidden when she saw what the man was carrying on his hands. The small lump wrapped in a white blanket had not interested her anymore than the animals drinking on the edges of the lake, but when she saw the small tail hanging from it, she immediately knew what it was.

"Are you perhaps related to this boy?" he asked her with a smile on his face. Before she could answer the man jumped from the branch and landed neatly in front of her, with his feet barely out of the water's reach. In the sunlight she was able to see him properly. He was wearing a black long sleeved suit, along with black shoes and a large orange shirt over it that reached past his knees. He had a green cap on his head, and a thick white bushy mustache that covered his mouth. He didn't seem anything like the warrior his power level revealed him to be before it dropped back down to 5.

He pulled the white blanket back and revealed a face Fasha had grown very used to over the years. The boy was the vivid image of Bardock, take away the scar that had covered his face for so long and they were identical, down to the few stray hairs that never seemed to settle anywhere.

"Yes" she answered in a very weak voice, her throat gripping most of it and not letting her speak properly.

"He was alone in the middle of the forest. I assume you came to my planet in the same way he did?" the man asked, raising both his eyebrows at her with an innocence that made her skin crawl. Fasha nodded and the man kept looking at her. "I was going to take him to my house to feed him and clothe him, if you want you can come as well, these mountains can be quite dangerous at night."

"I" she answered, unsure of what to do. She wanted to take Kakarot away from this place as fast as possible, ber her reckless flight had drained and while she wasn't particularly worried about the beasts in this planet, she wasn't sure she would be able to fight back all night, much less if she had to worry about Kakarot. And while this man seemed to be very weak compared to the rest of the power levels she had encountered over the years, he spoke with such confidence Fasha found herself wondering if he was the planet's leader, or at least a very influential man. "Yes."

"Good. Follow me, my home is not far away" he told her as he turned around and walked away. Thankfully the man was both short and slow, and it was easy for Fasha to keep up. Neither of them spoke again until they reached his home, which gave her a long time to think about this strange man whom she had not spoken for more than a minute and had already invited her to his home, without even asking her name. For all he knew she could kill him and take the baby away from him, or kill them both, and easily she could. She wondered it everybody in this planet was as foolish as this man. "Ah, here we are."

His 'home' was nothing more than a tiny shack at the top of a mountain, apparently keep together by flimsy wood and a prayer. It had no defensive structure whatsoever, and numerous windows. The house itself was an extremely easy target. Fasha wondered if the man was either too important to be attacked, or too unimportant to even draw attention to himself. As the time passed she began to realize it was more of the latter than the former.

What he did next surprised her beyond belief. Instead of taking the twisting and winding path that led up to his home, the man jumped up at least five meters up and landed in the middle of the path. With a similar jump he landed near the top of the mountain and walked towards his home without even breathing hard. Her scouter had read a power level of 53 the moment he jumped. When he stopped at his front door to wait for her it went back down to 5. Even more cautiously than before, she followed his jumps and landed even closer to his house than he had, it would not do for him to know she could fly, if he didn't already.

The man opened the door and went inside. With great care he placed the basket in the corner of the single room the house possessed and pulled the only chair he had offering it to her. Gingerly, she stepped inside and sat down, taking her eyes off the man for a second to quickly inspect his home before returning them to him. It was exactly as she expected it to be. Small, simple, with little to no furniture, and a small bed. No trophies or memories were placed around the house, and the only decoration that seemed curiously out of place was a small orange orb settled in a purple cushion on a small dias.

The orb was the size of an orange, and it seemed to light up the place even when she wasn't looking at it. It had four small stars, each the color of a red sun, positioned in such a way that they seemed to be directed to her. It was entrancing, and there was little doubt in her mind that it was a valuable treasure.

For a while the man ignored her, doing something on his counter. She heard some liquid moving and was soon greeted by the sight of the man handing her a wooden cup with water inside.

"Uh?"

"You looked parched."

Without answering she grabbed the cup and drank it in one big gulp.

"He will be hungry when he wakes up" she told him, her eyes still hard and unforgiving.

"Ah, perhaps you can tell me what to give him? I'm afraid I don't know anything about him."

"He" she began, before stopping herself. She knew nothing about the man, and even less about the planet she was in. She had to be careful until she knew more. "He can eat anything."

"Well, hopefully he'll enjoy the fruits I picked along the way" he spoke to himself mostly as he went to the small lump on his bed and gently unwrapped him, placing him more comfortably on his bed, using the only pillow he had to prop him against the wall and stopping him from rolling to the ground. "My name is Gohan, by the way. Son Gohan."

"Fasha" she answered after a few awkward moments of silence. She stood up and walked towards the bed. She placed her hand on the worn wooden railing and looked at the tiny boy, entranced by the memories that came unbidden to her. She had not realized for how long she had stared at him until she stretched her stiff neck and looked out the window.

The moon shone down directly at her.

She stiffened, every muscle in her body locked tight and her heart beated with furious speed, already expecting the twitching, the pain, the spasms.

But nothing happened. She let out a breath she had not realized she was holding when she saw that the moon was not a full moon. Thankfully a small sliver of darkness was still around the northern edge of the moon. Almost a full moon, but not enough to trigger her transformation that would have certainly doomed them all.

"Would you like to rest?" Gohan asked behind her, and she turned to face him. "You look quite tired."

She looked at him long and hard, still calming her heart and trying to relax her muscles, no doubt he had seen her. She could not afford to be this careless, she couldn't reveal more than what was prudent, she still didn't trust the man, but her physiology finally won, and she found herself nodding heavily.

"Yes."

00

Sleep had not come easily for Fasha. Nightmares had plagued her, as well as the new sounds of a foreign planet. She was not used to sleeping on a strange new world without having killed everything around her in a wide radius. It was an interesting experience, to hear the chirping of the insects outside, the distant howls of various predators and prey, running and jumping and flying. had she not been so tired she would have made a game of listening to their calls and imagining what type of animal made those sounds.

Slowly but surely, daylight came again, and she rose to find that Kakarot was not precisely where she had left him, next to her, with his head resting on her right forearm. She jumped up much faster than she had expected and almost shot off an energy wave that would have splintered the house into a billion pieces. Such was her fury. The only thing that stopped her was the sight in front of her of Kakarot trying to grab pieces of fruit that had been laid out in front of him and shoving them into his mouth. Gohan was sitting at the table, using his hands to prop the baby up and stopping him from falling.

"You're awake. I was waiting for you to wake up. I was thinking of getting some milk for the boy, many babies, both animal and human drink it."

She listened to his words, still too sleepy to fully understand what was happening, but once she realized that Kakarot was fine, she allowed herself to relax. Slightly.

She walked over to him and placed her hand around him, gingerly testing how to hold him correctly. Gohan got up and began to walk out the door when she opened her mouth and asked the question that had been bothering her since she had arrived.

"What is this planet?"

Gohan turned around and smiled at her before gently closing the door.

"Earth."

00

It had taken a lot of reassuring, but Fasha had agreed to leave Kakarot with Gohan for an hour as she flew back to the nearby lake. She had locked into Gohan's signature, and he had agreed to stay in the house until she returned, but that didn't meant that she was completely sure about the agreement. She just knew what her nose told her. She needed a shower.

Without taking her eye of the scouter she removed her gloves, her boots, her armor and her pink bodyglove, throwing them to the side of the lake. She jumped into the water and allowed herself a few moments of relaxation, feeling how the cool water ran over her body. She grabbed a smooth rock from the waterbed and began rubbing her skin with it, softly cleaning herself with patience that was alien to her usual character. She began to lower herself in the water, feeling how her eyelids felt heavier and heavier.

The water rose to her breasts, then her neck, then her chin.

Then her scouter beeped.

Jumping up with a start, she opened her eyes and looked at the screen and read the transmission being sent. She gulped and felt anxiety in her stomach as she pressed the transmission button. After a few seconds she made up her mind and spoke, making her voice as firm as she could.

"Fasha here."

The voice that answered her was one that she had not expected, not that she had expected another saiyan to contact her, but even among that remote possibility, this was not among her expectations.

"This is prince Vegeta. Who is this?"

"Fasha" she repeated, lowering her head and looking at her reflection. "Member of Bardock's Planet Elite Force."

"Ah" the voice said, and to her it sounded rather disappointed. "Has any other member of your team survived the explosion of planet Vegeta?"

She hesitated for a moment. Would the prince even understand what had happened? Did he not know already?

"No your highness" she said finally. "I'm the only one left."

"What's your current location, Freeza requires us to report to him at once."

Fasha froze. The chirping of a nearby bird seemed like a mile away, the water at her legs felt like ice gripping her throat. For what felt like a long time she was silent, pondering what to say. Of course he didn't know. Prince Vegeta had no way of knowing what had actually happened to their planet, he was in Freeza's hands. Who knew what kind of sick story he had told the boy? With a deep breath she pulled a list of past coordinates from previous planets the scouter's previous owner had visited. She gave him the place furthest away from her current location.

"My space pod was damaged during the crash" she lied. "I can't repair it by myself, Your Highness."

"I'll tell Freeza" he answered with annoyance. "You stay put and wait for further orders."

"Yes, sir. If I may ask, how many of us are left?"

"We are trying to contact more like you. There are currently 3 of us gathered."

"I see."

"Vegeta out."

She stood for a few moments in the lake, thinking on what she had just learned. There were 3 more saiyans alive, the prince amongst them. All of them gathering dutifully and waiting. Not knowing that Freeza was going to kill them the moment they had finished gathering everybody. With barely controlled fury she grabbed the rock she had used to clean herself and crushed it with her bare hands.

Without wasting a single second, she got out of the lake and screamed as she charged her power level. She deliberately allowed most of it to bleed out of her and into the atmosphere, heating up the air around her and turning the water into steam, leaving her dry. She placed her armor and flew towards Gohan's house with a snarl on her lips.


End file.
